


Make Her Choice

by emblazonet



Series: a thousand years [3]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Bronze Age Valdemar, F/F, Female Relationships, Gate magic, Mages, Origin Story, Pelagirs, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 10:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emblazonet/pseuds/emblazonet
Summary: Herald Yfandes is sent to investigate Darkmoss Mine, for King Valdemar has had no word from them, and their shipment is overdue. To her surprise, a Companion on Search elects to join her...This is a prequel to my 'a thousand years' series, a birthday gift for Zahnie about how Yfandes and Gala met!





	Make Her Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zahnie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahnie/gifts).



> While I try to remain as canon-compliant as possible, I do take cheerful liberties with my historic Valdemar--in King Valdemar's time, there are Permanent Gates, but the metallurgy keeps them in the bronze age.

 

A Companion presented herself to the grooms while Yfandes was saddling Vulf. Yfandes looked over at the head groom, who had paused midstride to take in the new, young, leggy Companion. "I don't recognize her," said Yfandes.

The head groom said, "That's Padetha, out of Ardatha by Steladar. She's going to make her Choice, I'd wager. I'll get the caparison. If she's coming by right now, I suspect she's going with you."

Padetha bobbed her head in a very human yes. Yfandes blinked. Three years since Vulf had Chosen her, and the strange mannerisms of the Companions never failed to startle her. Maybe a horse nodding would someday seem normal to her. Maybe.

Padetha looked like a carving brought to splendid life when the groom was done with her: the blue caparison studded with bits of silver, the silver bells at her bridle twinkling. Yfandes had paused in tacking up Vulf—kissing his nose in apology—to braid blue ribbons into Padetha's pearly mane. It was soothing work, and Yfandes felt like it was important somehow. Padetha needed to look beautiful for the one she would Choose. Being a Herald wasn't easy work, not ever, but the beauty of Companions brought solace.

Vulf's tack was simpler. The blue dye on the leather had begun to fade from time spent in the sun. There were no bells. Sturdy brown leather saddlebags and quiver held emergency supplies and weaponry.

Riderless and without lead rein, Padetha followed Vulf out of the stable. They began the slow winding out of the palace through the city. Yfandes told Padetha, "We're heading for the East Great Gate."

The two Great Gates were permanent Gates, maintained by Adept-level mages and their students. The Adepts of the Mage's Guild, skilled at Gating, had allowed King Valdemar to find this unsettled land, to push against the discord of the dangerous Pelagiris. With the unevenness of terrain and the need to search for clean water-sources and tin and copper mines, the Gates were crucial to the development of the city of Haven and the further-flung settlements.

Yfandes was going on a short trip to oversee a tin mine in the northeast. There were only two tin mines in all of Valdemar. The other was nearly-empty, a day's ride sound from Haven. The northeastern mine—known to its miners and garrison as Darkmoss Mine, or, more usually, 'the old shitpit'—was newer, and far into the Pelagiris woods. Neither of the permanent Gates led directly to any one mine. The South Gate connected Haven to the town of Kettlesmith.

Yfandes, Vulf and Padetha would take the East Gate to the smaller, less populated town the settlers were calling Prytheree Ford.

Outside Haven, armed guards sat at the bases of two massive stone arches facing their respective directions. They saluted Yfandes casually as she drew rein before them. "Herald Yfandes, sent by the King to Prytheree."  
  
"Heyla, 'Fandes," said a guard she knew. "Gonna find a new Herald to swell your ranks?"

"I don't know, Arlan," said Yfandes, "I hope so. But that's not my mission. I'm checking up on Darkmoss Mine." It wasn't confidential information; bandits had attacked the mine a month earlier, and been beaten off. But a month was easily long enough for new troubles to arise.

"Ah, that one's work. Well, best of luck to you!" said Arlan, waving her through with a hand that held a buttered hunk of bread.

Yfandes didn't mind Gates. She rather enjoyed the little thrill of her body feeling oddly yanked, the swift burst of disorientation. Vulf and Padetha seemed completely unfazed, and they chimed out of the Gate and onto the packed dirt of the town square.

The morning sun was behind a cloud though it had been shining strong back in Haven; everywhere thick mossy trees crowded around wooden houses with freshly painted fronts. Prytheree had done most of their spring painting this year in blues and reds, and there were little bright spots of yellow. The towns in Valdemar became more charming and unique with every year as people settled down, raised children, and made themselves at home.

Children squealed and ran around the Companion's hooves, and Yfandes shooed them off with a laugh. She called greetings to the people drawing water at the well, the man carving a staff, a teenager shooing chickens behind a low wall. "I'm looking for Lady Delina, please."

Lady Delina was quickly found and brought. An Adept of the Mages' Guild, she dressed simply in forest-green, her main ornament two heavily embossed bronze brooches on her apron dress. Her silver-shot black hair was braided twice and wrapped over her head like a coronet.

"Herald Yfandes? It's been some time."

Yfandes dismounted and bowed to the lady. "I remember your help during that skirmish two years ago. I'm glad to see you well. I've been sent here to check up on the Darkmoss Mine."

Lady Delina's face darkened. "We haven't heard from them in almost a week now," she said. "We should have received a shipment yesterday. I contacted their mage, and he said they were delayed. But he cut off the communication quite quickly so I don't know what's going on. I'm glad you came so soon."  
  
"Are you able to construct a Gate to the mine right now?"

"My lady, no!" said a townsman who had been standing nearby. "Pardon me, Herald, but you must realize, my wife is in the field with her boys, and my cousin's out for mushrooms with a gaggle of littles—please wait until dark. I don't want them rained on until they're back."

Delina chewed her lip for a moment. "You raise a good point, Headman. We don't want a panic, so let's not ring them in." She was referring to the town's alarm bells. "But send someone fleet-footed to collect them."

"I can look," said Yfandes.

It took a candlemark or more to round up the townsfolk, delays that worried Yfandes a little. Padetha stayed in the town square, but did not Choose anyone. She nodded her head when Yfandes asked her if she were coming to the mine.

At last the preparations were ready. Many of the townspeople went to their homes. Lady Delina built the Gate in the same place she always did: the doorway of the town's chapel. She used oils to draw designs on the lintel, and sprinkled flower petals at the threshold—Yfandes' magic was weak, not even up to the rigors of Journeyman level, but she knew the theory well enough. A Gate was a complicated pattern, and anything that helped to focus the mind left the mage stronger when it came time to feed the spell energy.

The clouds were already plump with rain. They spat out thin droplets as the Gate shimmered into being. Trees much taller and thicker than those around Prytheree formed an ominous avenue towards the wall of the mine.

Lady Delina followed Yfandes onto the road, leading her dapple grey gelding by the bridle. She let out a huge exhale as the Gate collapsed behind them. Its terminus on this end was a natural arch of gnarled branches. She'd brought her spell-pouch with its vials of oil and packets of petals with her, to Gate them back when their check-up was done.

"If they've had trouble delivering the shipment we'll Gate it back with us," Lady Delina said as she mounted. "That should make life easier on everyone."

The two Companions kept to the pace of the gelding's trot. In the green gloom they drew near to Darkmoss Mine. The mine was protected by a rough palisade of local wood, which was greener with moss now that it had been the last time Yfandes had visited.

The sentry called down to them. "Is that a Herald! Say, you a Herald! Don't come any closer, or I'll put an arrow through your eye!"

Vulf and Padetha stopped abruptly; Delina reined in her palfrey.

"I'm Herald Yfandes, come to check on the mine! I've got papers signed by the Bronzeman's Guild, and a token from King Valdemar!"

"And who's with you?" shouted the sentry.

"Lady Delina of Prytheree, Adept of the Mages' Guild," Delina boomed. There was no magical amplification; Delina just knew how to make her voice carry.

"We'll send out someone to check your papers," said the sentry.

They waited.

Lady Delina said, "They're taking their merry time about it too."

"Trouble," said Yfandes.

Delina played with the pouches of magical components at her belt. Her palfrey shifted weight and pawed at the mossy ground. Vulf breathed steadily, patient as he always was. Padetha did not have Vulf's patience: she nibbled on little green sprouts or paced off the track, setting her hooves delicately around the tumble of rocks and sharp-edged blackberry bushes. She never roamed too far, thank goodness. Yfandes did not trust the Pelagiris. No one should.

The sentry never called back to them, nor did anyone come to check Yfandes's papers. Instead, a body tumbled over the palisade, cracking over the stones below. A black-and-green fletched arrow sprouted from his chest.

Shouts and meaty thuds and scrapes of steel jabbed into the heavy forest air.

"Bandits inside the mine," said Yfandes grimly. She'd so hoped this would be a perfunctory check up. She strung her horse-bow, pleased that her training didn't abandon her. A few years ago, she would have fumbled. Nocking an arrow, she nudged Vulf forward a fraction. The palisade gate wasn't open, and the sounds of combat were muffled. Would the bandits inside be opening it to reinforcements? She surveyed the trees, looking for motion.

Padetha snorted and bolted to the left, along the track of dirt that went around the palisade's edge.

: _Should we follow?_ : Yfandes asked Vulf. Vulf lept into motion. Behind her, Lady Delina urged her palfrey after them.

Yfandes thought to Delina, : _I don't know what Padetha is doing, but Vulf's following her. Don't put yourself at risk if you don't have to._ : She didn't expect a response, knowing her MindSpeech gift was strong and that mages often didn't share it.

They turned the first corner of the palisade and charged into a scrabble of five bandits in hodge-podge armour of boiled leather and oxidizing copper. The element of surprise kept the Companions and palfrey safe from spears.

Yfandes shot two bandits down speedily; flames engulfed a third and left nothing but ash. That was Delina, breathing words under her breath, her fingers outspread and glowing redly.

Two bandits were behind an enraged Padetha, and shielded moreover by trees. There wasn't a clear shot, and Delina hesitated, afraid of injuring the Companion.

Yfandes spared a glance at the wall: no arrows were pointed at her, and no one seemed to be patrolling, not while the sounds of chaos indicated a battle within. That left her free to assess what was happening on the ground. Padetha stood over a crumpled, bloody figure, her ears pinned back, dancing carefully from the thrusts of the bandit's spears. Her lashing hooves and bared teeth kept the bandits at bay.

Yfandes exchanged a worried glance with Delina. It seemed like a stalemate, and Yfandes' skin prickled all over, knowing that at any minute bandits could be shooting down on them from the walls, or more of them could spill around the walls or from behind the trees.

Blurry inhuman bodies shot from the undergrowth and tore into the bandits. One was savaged at the neck, spine snapping under scaled jaws; the other bled out in seconds from deep scrapes at the inner thigh and belly. Nausea roiled through Yfandes as the beasts circled the meat of the bandit's bodies, blood streaming from their green-tinged teeth.  
  
"Wyrsa," said Delina, horrified. "But they're not attacking us... I don't understand, why aren't they attacking us?"

Some of Yfandes's revulsion was _Vulf's_. "What are wyrsa? What are they?"  
  
"Demon creatures, the worst hunters in the Pelagiris," said Delina. Her palfrey cried in distress, trying to turn and bolt; Delina tugged on the reins, and only his training kept him in place, shivering.

Padetha gently, casually, stepped away from both the feeding wyrsa and the bloody bundle at her hooves. She lowered her neck and nuzzled the bundle. The bundle shifted, staggering to her feet, turning into a slender woman lost beneath an immense, ugly, blood-stained coat. She brushed a tangled mat of brown-black hair from her face, and faced the wyrsa.

"It's all right," said the woman over her shoulder. Her accent was thick and strange, oddly flat. "I control them. Just... don't try to stop me. Who you strangers are, I don't know, but stick close to me. I won't hurt you."

The way she placed strong emphasis on 'you' indicated she meant to cause hurt to someone.

That was how Yfandes found herself entering the postern gate of Darkmoss Mine behind a woman who controlled wyrsa. There were twenty or so bandits when Yfandes entered, trying very hard to break into a barricaded shed where the surviving miners had fled.

The bandits turned to the woman in the ugly coat, and their shouts of recognition were cut short by the blinding tangle of two wyrsa. Yfandes looked away, gorge rising.  
  
"I don't understand how that girl is doing this," said Delina, standing beside Yfandes and Vulf. She'd left her palfrey tied to a tree near the gate, because of his fear. "She shouldn't be able to hold them. She's not an Adept. Maybe a Master-level, maybe. She can't be doing that. Those are wyrsa. Those are demons. This isn't possible."

"They're dead," said Yfandes, meaning the bandits. "Let's go free the miners."

"She can't keep a hold of them, they're going to break free," insisted Delina.

Yfandes looked at the woman in the big coat, who calmly watched the carnage, a small smile playing around her lips. The wyrsa twined around the corpses but made no move to kill any of the living.

"You want my assurances I won't order them to kill you," said the woman. "I won't kill any but bandits. These men and women are—were—my captors. Their master is, rather. But I will remove all his limbs from him, as I have begun. Those workers in that building? They are none of my concern."

"Actually," said Yfandes, "Lady Delina worries that you will lose control of these... wyrsa."

The woman turned a level gaze on Yfandes and Delina. "I will not. Not until the Master is dead."

"Once we've sorted things out with the mine, we will talk," Yfandes said.

The woman nodded. "I await this."

The miners were freed from the shed. Many lost their lunches at the site of the wyrsa nibbling on a heap of corpses. The beasts had dragged every last bit of the bodies into one muddy space, and they flopped there panting like dogs, mouthing flesh and licking blood.

Inside the administrative building, the administrator—a man called Viktor Hammerhand—sagged into his chair and gestured Yfandes to sit. Delina had stayed outside, preparing spells to hold the wyrsa if the woman lost control of them.

"We've been besieged for months," he said. "But we thought it was just... regular bandits. Starving scurvy bastards, outcasts, you know. Men who'd rather steal than work. But they've got an organization. We beat them once; they retreated only to harry us. We lost men to the wood. There'd be new spooky noises at night. Strange fires at our walls. Once, a delivery of the severed heads of our workers lost to the forest."

"Why didn't you send to the king?"

"I did, when I could," said Viktor. "They were making it tough for us to ship things... impossible. We thought we'd beat them off, the last time the king sent soldiers, but a week ago they took our mage. It was after that when they sent the heads."

"I am sorry to hear this," said Yfandes. "I wish we had sent you help earlier, and I apologize as a representative of the king that we were unable to assist."

"Please, I don't think your... creatures... have killed all of them. I think there's still danger. Might Lady Delina contact the king magically?"

"I will ask," Yfandes promised.

Outside, she faltered in the doorway. Padetha and the woman in the ugly cloak stood with their foreheads pressed together. The woman held Padetha's white cheeks with shapely long hands, a forefinger tucked into the bridle strap.

Chosen.

Yfandes approached them and cleared her throat. Elsewhere in the palisade she was vaguely aware Vulf was drinking from a bucket, and that he was nervous.

: _Did Padetha make a mistake in her choice?_ : Yfandes thought to him.

The nervousness abated for a moment, replaced with some small frission of shock. No then. Obviously, Companions could not make mistakes.

Yfandes cleared her throat, and said "Padetha has Chosen you to be a Herald of Valdemar."

The woman turned her face to Yfandes. Her eyes were a deep rich brown. "She told me," she said. "And that I have the protection of your king now. I cannot be chained to the Master any longer. I am Galada. My father is of your people—our people."

Yfandes said, following the jumps of Galada's conversation with a calm confusion, "And your mother?"

"Tayledras."  
  
"I don't know what that means," said Yfandes. She could see something different about the woman, a goldness of skin, that shade of brown eyes, something about that decisive plumpness of her mouth, that said border to her.

"They're not your people, they were here before," said Galada. "They live in a place, and then they move on. Not in villages like yours. And they don't mine. Except odd ones, like my mother. Although she was a weaver, before.”  
  
"Your mother is a miner here?"

"She was," said Galada. "The Master murdered her, during that first skirmish a moon ago. Well, his rabble did."

"Do you work here, too?"

Galada shrugged. "I came here to work. My mother brought me to find a husband." Padetha nuzzled Galada's cheek.

"Tell me about the Master," Yfandes said.

"I need water for my throat," said Galada wryly. "It's a story. Also, I'd like to sit down."

Yfandes's gaze flicked to the panting wyrsa. Wait—was one of them asleep? It lay coiled like a snake, its round meat-filled belly rising slowly, its muzzle closed over its fearsome teeth and looking almost cute as a dog's. Except that it wasn't a dog. There was a stink rising in the air, and the miners—cleaning, bolstering defences, organizing the chaos—gave the wyrsa a wide berth.

"I'll send them into the jungle, then," said Galada. She smiled at Yfandes, a crooked little smile as if she were sharing a joke, and said, "Your mage is worried, but their control was set in this," and she held up her wrist. A stone bracelet set with ruddy crystals—they looked like they had been pushed into the stone, as if the stone had once been as clay. "I stole his device, and two of his wyrsa. They only obey this bracelet."

"He has more wyrsa?" asked Yfandes, alarmed.

Galada led the wyrsa out of the mine, the sleepy one shaking its head groggily. They loped out into the brush and disappeared. "His pack numbered four. One is dead. So he has one, and I have two. They were his most fearsome weapon, and now he is mostly defanged. I warned him that the mine would be a tough nut to crack, and that Valdemar would be his enemy, and he laughed. Foolish Master."

Yfandes and Galada sought out tea, and sat with Delina in a corner of the mine's area, by a vegetable patch, the kettle between them. Galada leaned back on Padetha, who lay curled around her. Vulf eyed the vegetable patch, and Yfandes said firmly, "No."

Galada began to talk. With the tea in her, and Padetha bolstering her, she grew friendly and animated, her hands rising to illustrate her story.

"A month back, the Master first attacked the mine, killing several miners. He could not get his wyrsa inside the palisade, and the miners beat off his bandits. Anyone outside the walls, though, was murdered. Except me, because I am a mage. My shields held against the first wyrsa; he did not let them kill me after that. He wanted me to be his student.

"Possibly more, but I'll say this for the Master—he never touched my body, and that was the first thing I expected. Funny man, he seemed to think I'd trust him and wish to learn from him. As if I would, after he killed my mother."

"I don't understand," said Delina, eyeing the wyrsa-controlling bracelet. "Is he a Master-level mage? How can he be, when he can control those monsters? Even Adepts cannot control them!"

Galada shrugged. "They're not purebred."

"What?" Delina's voice was flat.

"He explained this one to me, actually," Galada said with a sparkle of mischief. Yfandes's mouth quirked. She could see Galada did not especially like Delina.

"You see, he tracked the wild wyrsa, and set one of his hounds on a female in heat. She tore him apart, and the next, but eventually she whelped out half-breed puppies, and he's been breeding diluted puppies since then. Those wyrsa that this bracelet controls? They're third generation, and they need the bracelet."

By this point, Delina's face was contorted in disgust, and Galada's eyes were dancing.

"Why is he attacking the mine?" Delina demanded, clearly trying to change the subject.

"Wealth, slaves, the usual. Such men crave power, especially when they feel slighted. He has the charisma to lead; and the lazy and craven follow him."

"Excuse me," said Yfandes, holding up the hand that did not hold the crude clay teacup. "Two things. One, you have not told us the name of this Master, and two, you have not answered the question as to whether he is a Master-level mage."

"He never gave me his name, only 'Master.' He draws on the leylines," said Galada. "Does he use node-magic? I don't know. I don't think so. I can't, myself."

That admission seemed to make Delina feel better, since she relaxed noticeably. It was odd, Yfandes reflected, to see the composed Delina so ruffled over the mage. For Yfandes, the matter was simple: Padetha had Chosen Galada. Galada was a Herald now, one of hers, and that meant Yfandes could trust her completely.

***

 

The miners rebuilt the mine's defenses. At night, the air slammed cold against them. Howls and weirder sounds rippled and tore at the air, and they lasted until dawn.

The next morning Delina failed to send messages by magic to the king: there was some sort of shielding she could not sway, despite her great power. "He may call himself 'Master,'" said Delina in a tone braided both with heavy scorn and shivering worry, "but he is Adept-level, and possibly stronger than me."

"We have three mages," said Yfandes, not mentioning how weak her own mage-gift was. "Two Companions. Two... wyrsa. Let's bring the fight to him."

"And destroy him," said Galada through bared teeth.  
  
"If we must," said Yfandes. "Though if we can strip his power, somehow, and bring him before King Valdemar for justice..."

Galada shook her head, but not, Yfandes thought, in disagreement that a trial would be preferential. She simply believed the Master was a rabid dog that needed to be put down. Yfandes privately thought Galada was right.

They rode out before the noon sun had reached its height—not that the noon sun was anything other than a weak spill of green from the thick canopy. Galada still wore her immense patchwork coat. The Companions picked their way through the uneven ground, their ears swivelling with great suspicion. Delina rode pillion with Yfandes, unwilling to bring her defenseless palfrey along. The wyrsa snuffled sinuously through the underbrush.

They found bodies within the first candlemark.

They'd been miners, but now they were wobble-headed scarecrows impaled on spears of living wood. The Pelagiris had entwined them in its coils of ivy. Bugs streamed up bloated flesh.

Yfandes turned her head away.

"The Master's work," said Galada. Her tone aimed for indifference, but it shook anyway. "We can follow his trail to his tower. They're supposed to mark the boundary, I suppose, but for us they're trail-markers."

She had to call away the wyrsa from the ... trail-markers.

"Will he know we're approaching?" asked Delina. "I would like to shield us from his sight until we have a better idea of what we're up against."

"He can scry, and he has spies," said Galada. "A few, anyway. Less, now, I think... the beasts of the Pelagiris don't like him. The forest doesn't like him."

"I don't think the forest likes us, either," said Yfandes, eyeing the green shadows. The air was humid and heavy.

"No," said Galada. "It is a corrupted, unclean place. The wyrsa are keeping us safe for now."

A long horrible shriek tore through the air. The wyrsa, neck deep in a juniper bush, wrenched themselves out and bolted into the undergrowth.

"What is that?" Delina demanded.

Before anyone could answer, vines burst from the ground. They whipped around the Companions' hooves. Vulf reared, shrieking himself.

Yfandes kept her seat.

Delina didn't.

Before Yfandes could stop him, Vulf hopped frantically to the side, dodging the malicious vines. Beside them, Padetha did the same. Dark shapes emerged through the undergrowth, furry horned things Yfandes had no name for. When the Companions had cleared enough distance they thundered away through the undergrowth and the beasts.

: _Delina!_ : Yfandes shouted at Vulf. : _We have to go back for her!_ :

"Ouch!" said Galada, the wind and snapping undergrowth tearing the sound from her mouth almost before Yfandes could hear her. "That hurts!"

: _This?_ : asked Yfandes, toning it down for Galada's benefit.

"Yes! Wait, how are you doing that?"

Yfandes ignored her. "Vulf, we have to go back for Delina!"

It was like talking to a stone wall. Vulf's ears were pinned as far back as they could go. Panic surrounded the Companions like an aura. Yfandes's heart twisted as thunder crashed and lightning turned the world silver. Delina's magic.

There was no bit on a Companion's bridle. No amount of hauling on the reins would stop him. As much as two large horses hurtling through a thick overgrown forest could, the Companions charged neck-and-neck, running as if creatures were snapping at their feet. Yfandes ducked low to Vulf's neck, risking look behind her. For awhile it seemed shadows lunged at them from behind bushes, but as the Companions ran, the shadows of the forest became simply shadows, not beasts moving with their own malicious accord.

The Companions stumbled to a halt in a small clearing. Yfandes cautiously dismounted. Vulf shook, not with fatigue—she thought—but with stress. Slowly she ran a hand down his neck, over and over.

Galada scrambled off Padetha's back and followed suit. Padetha looked even more nervous than Vulf; her eyes rolled still, whites showing around blue.

"Well, we're down our mage and your wyrsa," said Yfandes once her own heart had settled down and she could hear over its thumping. The forest here was quiet except for the buzzing of insects, a distant chirping, and the breeze stirring leaves. "That isn't an ideal way to besiege an Adept-level mage."

"I'm a mage," murmured Galada, but it wasn't an argument.

"We don't know enough about this forest!" said Yfandes in a sudden burst of frustration. "Oh, we should've gated back to Haven and gotten reinforcements."

"And left the miners defenseless so they all die as soon as the Master launches an attack?" Galada asked, her mouth twisted to a sneer. "No, we made the right choice, I think. He won't expect someone to take the fight to him. He likes to be frightening."

"He's succeeding at that," said Yfandes, hugging Vulf's neck briefly.

"We've gone closer into his territory," said Galada, taking stock of their surroundings. "We've sort of spiralled in towards his tower. These magic horses here did well," she added, rubbing Padetha's nose with a halting, affectionate hand.

The Companions' ears shot up, and they lifted their heads in alarm.

Before their Heralds could react, beasts like scaled, slender bears materialized out of the underbrush. They moved faster than their large frames indicated they should.

Galada reached out her hands and crackling blue-tinged bolts shot from them, searing the beasts. They did not die or catch fire, but they stumbled backwards.

Galada swore under her breath. "I can call lightning," she said insistently, as if picking up the thread of an old argument. She heaved in a breath and grabbed Yfandes's hands. "Feed me power," she begged. "Let me have your power. I can channel it."

"If you can," said Yfandes, who knew how difficult or impossible it was to share the mage-gift with another mage. She dropped all her shields.

Galada's magic slid into Yfandes, somehow. Like strong cords wrapping around her mind, into her body through her mind, weaving in and out through her bones and tendons. It was distinctly uncomfortable. Yfan des's shields tried to reassert themselves; Vulf's power, like cool water, poured around her, dampening her shields, letting Galada's power do its work.

The bear-things stalked closer. Padetha kicked out at them, and they slithered, multi-jointed and nauseatingly fluid, out of the way.

Yfandes felt Galada's magic join with itself, as if it were making a net. Her eyes were closed, the wind stirring the brown wisps of hair that framed her face.

Galada's eyes opened. She spun to face the bear-things, keeping one hand tight and warm around Yfandes'. She lifted her other hand, and shouted a word that wasn't in any language Yfandes knew. The magic net yanked power from Yfandes.

Lightning exploded around them; not just from Galada's fingers. The bear-things disintegrated into ash and charred bone.

"I _knew_ I could do it!" Galada yelled. Then she clapped her hand to her mouth. "I hope he hasn't noticed us. The Master. Did you see that, Yfandes? Did you see it? Your magic is beautiful, it's lovely paired with mine!"

Yfandes blinked dazzle-spots from her vision. Galada's grin was half-crazy with triumph and fear. Her enthusiasm made Yfandes's mouth twitch into a matching grin.

"That was impressive," she assured Galada. "Did it drain you?" She noticed she didn't feel drained, only... opened. She was open to Galada, who could take more power from her at need. And from Vulf, too.

"Not really," said Galada. "I needed... amplification, but it wasn't exhausting. Just... tricky to understand. I don't know... you helped the pattern along, if that makes sense? I'm... I don't know how they train it, where you come from, where you have lots of mages. I'm making it up as I go along." She looked young, suddenly, young and lost, and Yfandes restrained the urge to wrap her arms around her.

"You're better than I am," Yfandes said. "We'd better go find the master, though. Hopefully we can find Delina." Hopefully, Delina wasn't dead.

They mounted their Companions and rode into the underbrush, following a thin deer track. (Assuming the Pelagiris had anything so normal as deer.) Padetha led the way, Galada guiding her with presses of the knee or a soft tug at a rein. By mutual agreement they kept as quiet as they could, not speaking if they could help it. The Companions made barely a rustle as they picked their careful slow way towards the master's tower.

Perhaps they were quiet enough, stealthy enough. Beasts or animated vines did not hinder them until they came to the tower.

Yfandes didn't know what she'd expected. Walls, maybe. A stone tower, definitely. She had not expected to see a tree five times the girth of the biggest trees in the Pelagiris, with a strange rounded tree house high in its broad branches. There was something of a clearing around it, if only because the massive tree's broad leaves cut the waning afternoon sunlight, indicating it was too dark for much else beyond moss and mushrooms to grow.

"A treehouse," she said, barely above a whisper.

"Like something my mother's people would've lived in. I think that's where he got the idea," Galada said. "It's bigger inside than you'd think."

"It has storeys," said Yfandes, somewhat impressed. "And... the staircase. To get to him, we need to climb that. To catch him unawares. And it's so thin. We'll break it, or fall, or otherwise lose the element of surprise."

"He's not home," said Galada.

"What? How do you know?"

"His remaining wyrsa and his strange bird spies aren't here," said Galada. "Come on, let's set up an ambush in his home!"

Before Yfandes could think to stop her, Galada had broken cover for the staircase and was climbing it. Padetha whickered after her, but did not leave the shadow of the trees.

"She's trouble," Yfandes told the two Companions, and then steeled herself to follow.

The staircase was so thin Yfandes's hips brushed its edges with every step. Galada's coat snagged on the rough hemp rope that made up the hand rail. The staircase was thin and flexible and made of springy thin wood that nevertheless held. It had, Yfandes thought with some loathing, more in common with a ladder than a staircase, even if it did wind around the massive tree and had rather more structure than a ladder.

It was an unpleasant climb but over quicker than Yfandes expected. She watched Galada gulp, hand on the door, before pushing herself in.

The heat hit them like a wall. It wasn't a cold day, not even under the Pelagiris' shadows, but the air inside the Master's treehouse was thick with syrupy summer heat. Galada shimmied out of her coat and draped it over her arm.

Yfandes blinked. She hadn't seen Galada without the coat before. Galada wore a simple tunic and trousers underneath, faded to an indiscriminate greyish-green. Her figure was lithe and slender. Perfectly proportional. Rather lovely.

Yfandes shook her head to clear it. They needed to focus on their mission. "You weren't worried about shields?"

Galada snorted. "He wouldn't bother. He knows he's the scariest, baddest nightmare in this section of the Pelagiris. Besides, normally he has wyrsa." She grinned unpleasantly and tapped her bracelet. "And when mine return, I'll have more than he."

"Are they going to return?"

"I think so," said Galada. "They're not dead. I know that much. And the enchantment hasn't worn off."

The Master's treehouse at this level was a wide space, sparsely furnished. The uneven plank flooring showed scorch marks. Across from the door, another staircase—a real one—wound up to the second floor. Before Yfandes could think, Galada was half-way up the stairs. Yfandes, with a strange feeling of deja vu, followed. Following Gala.

The next level was full of what Yfandes had expected to see in a magician's home: it was a workroom, a claustrophobic space full of tables and shelves, dangling wooden charms, heaps of oddly-coloured mosses and mushrooms, a kiln, pottery of all kinds of rough shapes, and even on one shelf, two actual books. Yfandes knew better than to touch them, but she wondered what the papers were made of. One was a folding codex-style book, covered in leather, and the other was bound at the spine with knotted sinew. Its covers were two thin wooden boards.  
  
There was a low fire going in the kiln. Yfandes's small mage gift showed her the signs to contain fire inscribed all the way around it. The object being fired wasn't a bowl or a mug: it was a plaque, with raised clay twists bound into malicious intent.

"He's firing a curse?" Yfandes asked. "Why? What's the point? If he, I don't know, gifted it to a miner, they'd break it. They'd know better."

"It's meant to be broken," said Galada. She came beside Yfandes to look, touching her at arms and hip. Suddenly, the overbearing heat felt even more hot. "It's not thick, see? It's meant to be buried in shards around a place, to give bad dreams. He showed me the making of one when he was trying to take me as his apprentice."

"He's been terrorizing the miners with this," Yfandes said.

"That, and sending weird creatures to howl at the mine, and so on," Galada added absentmindedly. She was looking around the room, trying to find something. She yanked a tall rickety stool and put it under a net full of mysterious objects dangling from the ceiling.  
  
"Hey, careful—" Yfandes dashed forward just in time as Galada yanked an object down from the cluster and promptly lost her balance. The stool skidded out from under her, one of its legs snapping, and Galada tumbled into Yfandes's arms.

"Found it, found it! Hah, I figured he'd bring it out once I left!" Galada crowed, flinging one of her arms around Yfandes's shoulder as they stumbled against the table together. Yfandes managed to push them back on balance, though Galada wasn't any help. She held up an object in her other hand: a sort of netted talisman, with a cabochon jewel in the centre. There were feathers braided into the netting. Yfandes guessed they were hawk feathers, from the brown-and-white barring.

"Why do I have the feeling there's more to this half-mad plan than you were letting on?" Yfandes asked without much ire. Padetha had Chosen Galada, and that was enough for Yfandes.

"Oh no, no, I didn't mean any deception at all!" said Galada in surprise. "I was hoping this would be here. It was my mother's... it will focus power. It makes me stronger, like... sort of like you."

Yfandes looked into her deep brown eyes, fringed with lovely long lashes, and despite the danger they were in, laughed. "Are you comparing me to a jewel?" she asked.

"Better," said Galada. Something in her eyes softened. Before Yfandes's mind had quite caught up to things, Galada had leaned forward and captured Yfandes's lips with her own. Yfandes could only think of heat, and softness, and Galada's lithe body wrapped around hers.

Then Yfandes heard something horrible screech out in the forest, and the alarmed birdcalls that rose in response, and she gently pushed Galada away. "Not the time," she gasped. "Not the time!"

"No, you're right," said Galada. "Sorry—I'm sorry. I shouldn't've—I just, I was happy, and you're beautiful—"

Yfandes could feel her cheeks heat. "Later," she said, taking one of Galada's hands and squeezing it. "Later."

Galada grinned, all teeth and determination. "You're right," she said. "Alright, alright, the task at hand." She looked over the workroom. Outside, the birdcalls shrieked still, growing louder. "Something's coming, and it's probably the Master."

"And he'll have some sort of ward, won't he, and know someone's been here? You charged into here without thinking about that, I think."

"Oh," said Galada.

A heartbeat later, the workroom exploded around them.

Yfandes fell to her knees, half dazed from the sound, and half from the disconcerting feeling of Galada yanking magic from her: as if Galada had instead yanked a carpet out from under her. Debris flew past the shield Galada had raised, and then they were falling out of the tree. Yfandes felt the shield splinter around them as Gala lost focus.

Yfandes, in a panic, grabbed the nearest thing she could as they fell: the rope handrail of the staircase. Pain seared through her arm as she stopped her fall and Galada's; the two women slammed into the tree trunk and hung for a second, dazed.

"Climb onto the stair," Yfandes ordered. Galada pulled on their joined hands as she scrambled to get onto the stairs, and tears sprang into Yfandes's eyes from the pain. They clung to the stairs. First they crawled and then they ran down them. Smoke billowed out from the top of the tree, and flames leaped above them. The entire treehouse had caught fire.

At the base of the tree stood a furious stick of a man, with greasy longish brown hair that stuck out in all directions. His stubble was patchy, brown and grey and white. "You've taken everything from me, Galada," he whined. "I should've destroyed you along with your hawks-whore mother."

Somehow, Galada was still holding her talisman. "Maybe you should've," she said, though she was soot-streaked and breathing hard. "But instead, you're going to die here like a dog."

Sparks fell around them, smouldering briefly before going out. Much of the Pelagiris was too wet and damp to catch fire. Yfandes breathed through the roaring pain in her shoulder, and watched the mage. He was doing something, playing with little ceramic chips in his hand. More curses?

She flung a bolt of energy at him, but he only looked at it and it fizzled. She grit her teeth and grabbed Galada's hand again. : _Help me_ : she asked privately.

Galada's fingers interwove with hers. Together they threw another bolt of energy at the Master, and when he frowned at it it did not dissipate; it struck his hands instead. The ceramic chips fell as he yelped and stumbled backwards, his hands red and smoking. Where they hit the moss, it turned brown and dead.

"You'll pay for this," he snarled.

Flames, blue and sorcerous, sprang up all around them. The Master made a motion with his hands, and a wyrsa whipped from the woods and paced around their blue prison in unnerving undulations. The heat was unbearable, the flames lapping painfully at flesh.

To be burnt alive or to fight the wyrsa beyond? It wasn't even a choice.

: _Extinguish_ : said Yfandes, and fed Galada more power. And she screamed : _VULF!_ : as loudly as she could.  
  
Perhaps the Master would have succeeded in burning them alive, if the forest had not been so damp, so unwilling to let the blue flames gain purchase. It was close enough that blisters had started to form, and their clothes began to smoulder. Galada smothered the flames with her power, her eyes narrowed and mouth small and set. The whoosh of the flames vanishing made her hair fly wildly around her pointed face; Yfandes felt her own hair stir. She bit down curses that rose with each inhalation, because her shoulder still throbbed as loudly as ever, and the burns on her arms and face only added more dizzying flavours of pain.

Vulf struck the wyrsa like a boulder, and the wyrsa twisted away from his bulk, into a pain of hoof-strikes from flat-eared Padetha.

The Master raised his arms and called down lightning on the clearing.

The Companions and the wyrsa twisted away from lightning bolts, but one blazed across Gala's side, crisping away her tunic sleeve entirely as well as a streak from her trousers. Her hip smoked, the skin beneath burnt.

"I don't know," cried Galada, and desperately threw bolts of energy towards the Master, but he was moving now, his mouth moving in the spell that summoned lighting, and the bolts missed him, or were caught in the blazing hot onslaught of lightning. "It hurts, and I can't hit him, I can't hit him!" Yfandes was a mindspeaker, not an empath, but it didn't matter: Galada's frustration coiled fierce and miserable through her.

Movement through the undergrowth on the far side of the clearing, a stomach-twisting lurching movement.

Yfandes didn't hesitate. : _You're a despicable MURDERER_ : she roared at the Master, as loud as she could.

The Master's hands dropped and he looked wildly around for her, not sure if it was coming from Yfandes or something else. : _OVER HERE_ : she yelled. : _We are here to make you answer for your crimes!_ : All she needed to do was distract him, she just needed his attention...

He pointed at her, lighting crackling to his command.

Galada's two stolen wyrsa were on him in seconds. The lightning fizzled away, and blood spurted wildly. He never had time to yell as one wyrsa locked its snakish jaws on his throat. Yfandes didn't look away, though she was glad to see from the peripheral that Delina stumbled into the clearing, brushing twigs from her tunic.  
  
Beside her, Galada fell to her knees. At once, the panic of staying alive and the cold triumph of the Master's death drained away. Yfandes toppled beside her, and could not stop whimpering from pain.

***

  
Yfandes _remembered_ that Vulf and Padetha had brought them back. She vaguely remembered flopping over the saddle like so much meat. She certainly remembered that she'd been in considerable pain, so much that she'd passed out when Delina had jostled her shoulder.

Back at Darkmoss Mine, she passed out again when Viktor Hammerhand relocated her shoulder.

She came to in a small cot in one of the mine's above-ground buildings. Weak pale sunlight shone in one lone bar, dust motes dancing within. Probably morning. She sat up, and pain shot through her shoulder. Her limbs were tender from burns, and wrapped around with white bandages.

She learned over the course of the day what had happened. Delina had fought off the strange beasts that had ambushed them, and the two wyrsa had soon rejoined her and protected her.

Delina added, very delicately, that she surmised they had initially run off thinking to protect them, and then come back after realizing the party had been in more danger.

The wyrsa had eventually led Delina to the Master, but even the direct route—as opposed to the wild panicked ride Vulf and Padetha had taken—on foot took much longer than Delina would have liked. Still, the timing had worked out.

All of the wyrsa were dead. Yfandes was almost sorry to have missed the battle. Apparently the Master's lone remaining wyrsa had been an uncle to Galada's two, and being purer bred to its demonic ancestry, it had taken both of Galada's wyrsa and the Companions to subdue. The Companions had let the wyrsa do most of the fighting amongst themselves, and stepped in for the final attack.

Wyrsa were fierce, but one badly-injured wyrsa was no match for two intelligent Companions with powerful hooves.

They all spent an extra day at the mine, and a night, simply to rest. Yfandes was itching to report back to King Valdemar, and hopefully to see a palace Healer, but Vulf and Padetha weren't up for it. They stood by the palisade wall, nosing the greenery, their legs bandaged from minor wounds. And Delina's Gift was all but drained, and though she _could_ draw from the ley-lines, she wouldn't for so tetchy a spell as a Gate.

Yfandes wanted to talk more with Galada, but she spent most of the day snoozing in the cot. She saw Galada a few times, over meals of stew, her face shiny with the same burn balm Yfandes wore. She was glad that one dislocated shoulder and burns were the worst of their injuries. They could just have easily died, or been crippled.

The following afternoon Delina built the Gate. Galada watched the proceedings with wide eyes. She half-leaned on Yfandes, hugging Padetha's lowered head. "That's beyond my level," she said. Her mother's talisman hung on her hip, and she glanced down at it. "I can't do that, with the ley-lines. But I've got the—" she said a word Yfandes didn't know, indicating the talismas, and from her hesitant tone she probably hadn't pronounced it correctly anyway "—and you, if... you ever want to... partner up again? That seemed successful?"

Her brown eyes were so big and vulnerable. Yfandes wanted to kiss her, but at that moment the Gate shimmered into existence, and Delina waved them on.

"Do you think I'll fit in, at Haven with the other Heralds?" asked Galada.

Yfandes smiled. "Of course you will," she said. "We'll be grateful to have you. I know I am."

They rode into the Gate.


End file.
